"... the Resurrection accounts occur in all four of the Gospels; but you don't get a sense of who these women are in all four of the Gospels.

We've been looking in Matthew, and Matthew just says "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary." In Matthew 28:1 it says, "After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb"--two women named there. One of them is called "the other Mary" and the other is of course Mary Magdalene.

In Luke 24 Luke simply says, "Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they [meaning these two women], and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared"--no specific names identified at all by Luke.

Now when you get to John 20, which is where we're going today, verse 1 says, "Now the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb." Interesting, John only mentions Mary Magdalene.

Now these aren't discrepancies. They're simply differences. John only mentions Mary Magdalene because John only tells the story of Mary Magdalene. It makes great sense. The others--Luke doesn't see any reason to name them at all. They're just women who came to do their duty. I think the problem is when we get to the other Mary mentioned here in Matthew 28, we need to find out who that woman is.

I think the best way to do that, as I said, we're going to John 20 today, but before we get there, the best way to do that is look into Mark 16, because Mark 16:1 identifies the other women. Who is this other Mary we're talking about?

Well, there are no less than six women in the Bible named Mary. Obviously, some of them are not candidates for being the other Mary.

One of them is mentioned by Paul in Romans 16. She lives in Rome. He's saying hello to that Mary. That's Mary of Rome. That clearly is not the Mary that's being referenced here.

The second one is Mary the mother of the Lord Jesus. But I don't think the woman who was to be blessed forever and ever would be mentioned in the Gospel accounts as the other Mary, you know. I mean, if you're the mother of the Lord Jesus, you clearly are not the "other Mary." So I don't think we're talking about Mary the mother of Jesus.

Since it's a Mary other than the Mary Magdalene, it's not Mary Magdalene. So three of the six we can exclude immediately.

The last three, however, become more interesting. The mother of John Mark was named Mary. Remember when Peter was put in prison and he got out of prison. He came to the door and he couldn't get in. They were all praying at the house of John Mark's mother, whose name was Mary. However, there is no indication ever in the Bible that that Mary, the mother of John Mark, was one who would hang out with Mary Magdalene. So it's probably not that Mary.

There is of course Mary the sister of Martha, of that famous trio: Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. This is the woman who sat at Jesus' feet while her sister Martha scurried around and served the disciples. This is the woman who put the anointing oil over the head of the Lord Jesus. But again, she is always mentioned in the context of her sister Martha and never mentioned by herself. So it's unlikely that is the Mary that is referenced here.

That leaves only one other person, and I think Mark 15 and 16 helps us identify who that other person is. Let me start in chapter 15 of Mark at verse 40. "There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome."

Now these women looking on from a distance, it says in the next verse are the women who came with Jesus from Galilee. They were with Jesus all the time. They were at the foot of the cross with Jesus and these are the women who went to the empty tomb to anoint the body of Jesus. That's chapter 15.

Look at chapter 16, verse 1: "When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him."

All right, now we have the three women identified. There is Mary Magdalene, whom we know. There is Mary the mother of James and Joses (or that's another name for John), Mary, the mother of John--James and John. That, by the way, would be the woman who asked specific favors of the Lord Jesus for her sons to sit on His right or on His left in the kingdom, and Jesus shut that down in a hurry. So that's the second Mary.

But there's a third woman here we haven't even mentioned yet, and her name is Salome. Now this is an interesting woman, because she's not mentioned very often in the Bible, but always mentioned in the context of the women who went to the tomb.

So now we have Mary Magdalene. We have Mary the mother of James and John, the "Sons of Thunder." And we have this woman Salome...."